justinlehmiller

By far, the single most popular fantasy was having a threesome. Group sex in general was popular, but threesomes were the most popular form.

Interestingly, while threesomes were the most popular fantasy, they were also the fantasy that was least likely to turn out well when people tried to act on it. I suspect this is because most people don't have a script for how a threesome or group scenario should go. So they end up in the situation, but don't know quite what to do and it just doesn't play out like it did in their head.

Honestly, I'm not surprised that incest porn is as popular as it is based on my survey results. Believe it or not, 1 in 5 people said they had fantasized about incest before, with incest defined specifically in my survey as "sex with a blood relative." That said, just 3% said they fantasize about incest often--so while a lot of people have been turned on by the thought of incest before, rarely does it become people's preferred fantasy content.

In terms of the appeal of incest, a big part of it stems from the fact that it's a major social and cultural taboo. We come to want what we we're told we can't do--it's a psychological principle called "reactance."

Another part of the story behind why taboo acts are popular fantasies is because when we're sexually aroused, our disgust response lessens. So things that we normally find to be gross became less so when we're turned on. But once we orgasm, that disgust response tends to come roaring back quickly. So what people think is hot when they're turned on may cause revulsion when they aren't in the mood.

I only received one fantasy like in the survey, but it really stuck with me--it was from a woman who described a desire to become a "human cow." Basically, she wanted to be force fed hormones that would make her lactate continuously. She then wanted to be tied up in the center of town and used as a human "milk machine" where people would come milk and have sex with her at will.

After writing the book, I discovered that there's actually a whole porn genre devoted to this sexual interest (in fact, a quick search on Pornhub yields 1500+ hits for "human cow). I also saw a fascinating VICE article about this recently: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3599y/inside-hucow-the-fetish-that-imagines-women-as-cows

I think this fantasy is largely just an interesting variant of broader BDSM desires (coupled with a lactation fetish). Humans are endlessly inventive and flexible when it comes to ways of fulfilling these desires psychologically.

Funny you should ask because I just wrote an op-ed on this very subject today, which was published in USA Today. The short answer is that we need to move away from the abstinence and "just say no" model to teaching sexual communication skills, like they do in the Netherlands. When "just say no" is the only communication skill you have, you can't possible be prepared to navigate healthy sexual relationships.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/07/10/teach-teens-communication-skills-not-abstinence-sex-ed-column/754305002/

Oh, yes. This happens to me All. The. Time. At the bar. At the pool. At dinner parties. Everyone has questions about sex, but very few people feel comfortable asking their questions.

As I often say, people have an easier time having sex than talking about it--and when they find someone like me who isn't phased by anything and isn't going to judge them, then they finally feel like they can open up and ask all of the questions they've been dying to ask. I've heard it all.